Sefer Bamidbar Parshat Shelach: On Having a Truthful Outlook

In Parshat Shelach, which means “Send,” God has Moses send agents, or “spies,” one from each of the 12 tribes, to scope out the Promised Land. 

“See what kind of land it is,” Moshe tells them. “Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the land in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor?” 1

After 40 days, the spies return and give, what is often deemed to be, a false report, or at very least an exaggerated report, concluding that the Jews could not possibly survive in the land of Israel. This episode is known as the cheit ha’meraglim, the sin of the spies. 

They begin their report, though, with a statement that Is true: “We came to the land you sent us to,” they say, “and it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.” 2

Rashi, referencing the Talmudic tractate Sotah, 3 comments, “They stated this because no fabricated statement in which one does not first say at least some true words can in the end be maintained.” 4

The report then turned overly negative. The spies say: 

However, the people who inhabit the land are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw offspring of the giants there. 

Amalekites dwell in the Negev region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan. 5

But Caleb, the spy from the tribe of Judah, refutes their report, saying, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.” 6 

However, he is outnumbered, with the other spies — with the exception of Joshua from the tribe of Ephraim — responding:

We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we… The land that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there… and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them. 7

Nephilim, as the traditional commentators point out, are giants, the kind that appear in the Book of Genesis before the flood,8 people the Israelites would have no hope of defeating.

This sows disarray and despair among the Israelites, who say in turn: 

However, Caleb and Joshua, the spies respectively representing Judah and Ephraim, dispute the report of the other 10, saying, If only we had died in the land of Egypt… or if only we might die in this wilderness! Why is God taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Egypt! … Let us head back for Egypt. 9

The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. If pleased with us, God will bring us into that land, a land that flows with milk and honey, and give it to us; only you must not rebel against God. Have no fear then of the people of the land, for they are our prey; their protection has departed from them, but God is with us. Have no fear of them! 10

God grows angry at the Israelites for their lack of faith, and Moses again has to persuade God to pardon them. And still, they are punished by being made to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, one year for each day that the spies spent scouting. 

The Torah doesn’t say exactly why 10 of the spies were misguided in their report and conclusion—and why it had such awful consequences.   

Yeshivat Maharat semikhah student Nomi Kaltmann interpreted the sin of the spies not as an arbitrary lie or exaggeration, or as trying to derail the path of the Israelites, but as a response to the fear they experienced leaving the womb-like safety of God’s constant protection in the desert. She taught: 

All that the spies reported to Moshe about the challenges facing them in the land of Israel was true. The settling of the land of Israel would be challenging. It was unwalled. There were giants. The challenges were numerous.

While these perceptions were technically correct, like the baby who does not understand how life after the womb can exist, the spies failed to realize their flawed approach. Relying on what they had perceived, they drew an assumption that the people of Israel would be unable to overcome these obstacles and inhabit the land of Israel. They forgot that God was with them and that there would be a chance to create a new reality and vision, one that would allow them to simultaneously exist independently of the limitations of the desert and their reliance on God. Like the baby who can only relate to the immediate reality that they are living in, the people of Israel failed to understand that their perception was only one side of the equation. 11

In a similar vein, let us revisit a verse quoted above: “We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” The spies were projecting. They were convinced that others perceived them the same way they perceived themselves. All too often we may tend to do the same, leading us to even lower self-esteem and overcome by fear.

From this parshah, we learn that we must resist the temptation to grow cynical and discouraged. Yes, we need to be honest and realistic, but we also must be encouraged and empowered by the potential for change.

It is easy to look at the obstacles and challenges when creating change, but articulating problems should be balanced with a message of hope and possibility and faith. Sometimes we can tell the truth, but the partial truth is itself “false” when not balanced. 

This Torah portion presents not only a warning for major leaders to be cautious with their voice, but for all of us today to choose our words carefully—to be realistic but also be encouraging of productive efforts. 

In the current age, as we examine the dangers of climate change, pandemics, and the prospect of global warfare, we must be extremely discerning about what information we trust and how we react to information that is alarming or invokes panic or hopelessness. 

Most importantly, we must remember that a truthful outlook cannot be clouded by unsurmountable fear. 

Sources:

  1.  Numbers 13:18-20
  2.  Numbers 13:27
  3.  Sotah 35a
  4.  Rashi on Numbers 13:37:1
  5.  Numbers 13:28-29
  6.  Numbers 13:30
  7.  Numbers 13:31-33
  8.  Rashbam on Numbers 13:33:1
  9.  Numbers 14:2-4
  10.  Numbers 14:7-9
  11.  Nomi Kaltmann: “Beyond Immediate Reality” (Sefaria)